Technical Field
This application relates generally to relaying communications between end user devices.
Brief Description of the Related Art
The establishment of a peer-to-peer connection between mobile devices to enable the devices to communicate with one another (e.g., over a video calling application) is complicated by the use of Network Address Traversal (NAT) devices. If one or both peers are located behind NAT devices that provide connectivity using address-mapping or address-and-port-mapping techniques, then it might not be possible for the peers to establish direct end-to-end connectivity. Protocols exist that allow peers to overcome the problem of NAT traversal through the use of public packet relays, the most common of which is “Traversal Using Relays around NAT” (TURN). Use of a public TURN relay service has some drawbacks for performance, most notably the penalty that may be associated with the location of the relay server.
It would be desirable to provide a NAT traversal relay service that does not have the same performance drawbacks associated with a more centralized TURN relay service.
This disclosure addresses this need in the art.